From all media reports, it looks as though President Obama is in the process of making good on one of his campaign promises: to close the Guantanamo Bay prison that has housed detainees since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the ensuing threat of terrorism and continued combat in the Middle East.
Sounds as if it'll take awhile before Guantanamo is actually closed, but a deal seems to have been made between the federal government and the state of Illinois to turn the virtually empty Thomson Correctional Center in rural northwestern Illinois into Guantanamo North to make good on the campaign promise and spur economic development in an area with a reported 11.1 percent rate of unemployment.
It ain't a done deal yet, but even if it is it doesn't look to be more than political spin — a prison is a prison is a prison. The detainees will still be in virtual lock-down, regardless of where they are incarcerated. For security reasons, that won't change. And at Guantanamo Bay, they are isolated from the citizens of this country.
How much economic development will result from bringing a mere 100 detainees from Cuba to the prison? Not much, I would think. Currently, media reports indicate there are 200 minimum-security inmates with 82 staff members in the prison with 1,600 cells.
How many more jobs will be created to supervise the 100 detainees? Not many. Even with another 100 staff members added for a one-to-one ratio and a few jobs created in the community as a result of the transfer of detainees, it's a far cry from the 3,000 jobs the federal and state officials say the change will bring. And there's still another 200 detainees still at Guantanamo. What about them?
Despite the cries that Guantanamo Bay is a recruiting tool for terrorists and alienates our allies, the function of Guantanamo will be carried out wherever the detainees go. Seems to me that it would be much better to leave them where they are and figure out what to do with them, morally and legally. Which is also something that is going to have to be done some time along the way.
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Oh, yes, Ray. It is not the place but the actions which took place there which infuriated, just like Abu Ghraib. You can't stomp out the taint by closing the facility --this admin's reasoning is liberal psychobabble.
ReplyDeleteThomson? I spent many hours researching, because neither this state or the feds were particularly transparent. In fact, I went to IDOC's site to look up the max prison capacity numbers, blogged on them (we are way over capacity at all but Tamms)locally, and found a week later when I returned to the site, the capacity numbers had all been removed.
I attended all of the hearing, getting home at 9 pm. I didn't learn much since I had done my research, but what I did learn was revelatory. Jack Lavin is confused about the legalities surrounding the proceeds of the sale. It may be that the mortgage won't even be paid off from the proceeds -- we may sale the prison and still be paying off the debt. The Director of the State Police said without 1.6 million up front and 5 million annually from the feds, he can't assure that he can MITIGATE any risks that arise, and then our local paper editorializes that law enforcement did not raise any issues!
Jobs? DoD will bring in 1500 military to guard 30-90 detainees (198 reside in Gitmo, currently). BoP will hire 50 locals (a 7 county region including Iowa)the first year, and 400 the second. No one over 37 may be hired, and that includes secretaries. Subtract the 80 DOC employees who will be moved from 450 and then divide by 2 (Iowa's share of the jobs) and we are talking 185 direct hires, maybe, since there are 27,000 applicants for the BoP, curently. The other 450 jobs will all be current BoP employees. It's just nuts, everyone slobbering over hyped numbers, not that there won't be tangential jobs from the prison opening, but there will also be stresses like a flood of military kids into the schools, and these folks will eventually leave. When the military trials are over, the detainees will be just another BoP inmate, with all the priviledges of other inmates (well they could be subject to SAM's, but Reid just had his expire without Holder renewing them -- WTF??).
IN the end, the NYT reported the day after the hearing that Obama did not get his requested money for the purchase, and short of declaring a national emergency (for real) he will have to wait until fall of 2010 to put it in the budget, and he is losing moderate democrats on the issue. It was a done deal, but it is unraveling. With the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas? With what looks like our government not paying heed to the man's father warning us (God, deja vu), I think more will abandon the ship on Gitmo North.
BTW, aren't you close to Laurence Prison (I mean the old homestead)? It's a medium which is going to get maximum prisoners being downgraded just to move them out of the over crowded max's -- not a safe situation, imo, and the basis of my remarks at the hearing.
Like the blog, my friend.